alone
by arabellagaleotti
Summary: Tony finds out his parents are dead.
1. Chapter 1

"Tony?" The voice rouses me from fitful sleep. The sharp smell of booze and that general aura of disappointment and hopelessness that you find in 'the morning after' are thick in my nose.

I groan slightly and rub at my eyes. Rhodey's tentative form hovers next to the door, "Honeybear!" I say with surprising cheerfulness, only slurring slightly. My head pounds suddenly and I wince, bringing a hand up to my temple. Ergh, hangovers suck.

"Tony, um, I need to talk to you."

That's not good.

"Go on then, talk." I yawn, stretching out the cricks in my neck from falling asleep on the couch.

"Um, in private," he says, casting a glance around at the crashed-out party-goers from last night.

"Okay, I'll get everyone cleared out," I say, realising that something is wrong.

With creaking limbs and joints I get up from the upholstered couch, lumbering across the room bare-footed.

Opening the door to my room and reaching inside, I flick on the light and grab the air-horn from the dresser. "Ew," I moan, "somebody definitely had sex on my bed, Peering closer, "was it me?"

"Probably," James tries to quip, waking a girl that smells like tequila with his foot.

I shrug. Turning around, I holding up the air-horn and blast it. Loud.

Rhodey swears, covering his ears, "give a guy some warning, will ya?"

I shrug again, "well it worked, didn't it?" I gesture at the complaining and probably still drunk masses gathering possessions and heading towards the door.

"I guess," Rhodey mutters, twisting his hands together. I wander through to the kitchen, herding some stragglers out. I begin to whip up my go-to hangover cure: toast, extra-strong coffee spiked with vodka from the cupboard with a slice of leftover pizza. I pop a couple aspirin for good measure.

When I wander back into the lounge Rodey is waiting on the couch, a newspaper in his hands. I flop down open-limbed next to him. "What's up, buddy?" I ask though a mouth of grease and cheese.

"You weren't answering your phone, and nobody could get to you, so, um they wanted me to tell you...something."

"Tell me what?" I sip my alcoholic coffee. Rhodey wrinkles his nose at me - he's never approved of my habits, only tolerates them at best.

Rhodes says nothing in, handling the newspaper to me. I unfold the paper. My eyes start on the headlines, a sudden bolt of ice-cold shock zapping through me.

 _ **Howard and Maria Stark die in car accident in Long Island**_

There's a second of silence, and then Rhodey reaches out, touching on my arm.

"Get out, Rhodey," I say, voice low and dark.

" _Tones-"_

"Get. Out." I say again, he takes the memo, standing up and leaving the room, door slamming shut in his wake.

I am silent and still for one terrifying moment.

Then I turn, grabbing the mug resting on the coffee table and throw it with all my might to the wall. It shatters, a tinkling rain of falling china and a dark splash of coffee staining the white.

I drop to my knees, shuddering, shaking breaths racking my whole body.

I cry, hesitantly, sniffly at first, but the wet sobs come, surprisingly rough on my throat.

It's a few hours later, after a few bouts of crying and screaming and sometimes just mind-numbed silence that I get up.

 _My mother is dead. My father is dead. I am alone._

 _Alone._

The words are a cruel taunt, the man with everything, yet nothing. I have the ideal life, perfect in fact.

Yet what do I really have? DUM-E, my first robot. Rhodey. The girls who cling onto my arm hissing dirty things in my ear, only to disappear the next morning, never to be seen again. Obidah, my father's partner.

I had my mother. The thought of her reminds me of whispered words of Italian. Her artist's fingers, wrapped around the stem of a wineglass so delicately. Ruffling my hair, and me protesting as she laughs.

I had my father, these memories are not so warm, so loving. Her's are soft, quiet, like silk or gentle music in the background. His are scary and loud, breaking glass and drunken fits of rage. It was not always like that, on the other hand he was cold indifference and an empty house, with cold, lonely hallways leading nowhere.

 _And now they're dead._

I stumble into the bathroom, hands groping my way. I stop at the sink, rinse my hands, splash my face with painfully cold water.

I open the cabinet. There's a few bottles of meds there, sleeping pills and ones from when Rhodey hurt his shoulder. And of course the assorted party pills collected over time, hidden in a pack of bandages because Rhodey would never allow them if he knew.

I tip them out, the party pills, the pain, the sleeping. They all look so...small in my hand. I thought it would be bigger, more momentous.

I've thought about it before. First at 14 - when I discovered terms like _suicide_ and depression and anxiety. Then at 16, when Jarvis died. Then now at 21, an orphan.

It's funny how you can summarize some things up with one word, tired, alone, bored, lonely. But the word suicide, that somehow sums it up perfectly and doesn't at all.

I stare at the pills in my hand, and then up at the mirror. I look like my father, I've been told that to many times to count, and I don't even bother to respond anymore. But I look like my mother as well, her nose, the slight gentleness in my face - almost canceled out by Howard's cruel sharpness. I have Howard's hair, dark and thick. I also have his eyes, I think mournfully - the only part of my physical body that I really like. And it's been gifted to me by the man I hate.

 _Ironic._

I also see me, not Howard, not my mother, me. Tired, with tears streaking down my face and huge, purple half-moons under my eyes. My hair is sticking up all over the place, an unwelcome reminder of Howard.

 _What's left of me?_

 _Just a poor, orphaned rich boy? You're starting to sound like batman._

 _Maybe._

 _At least I have a reason now._

 _I had a reason before._

 _Yeah._

Without thinking any longer, I cup my hand to my mouth, and throw my head back like I'm taking a shot. I swallow the pills dry. Bending down to the sink, I wash them down with some cold water from the tap.

I study my reflection again, focusing on the parts of me that are my father's. This is for you, I think. The twisting of pain starts from deep in my mind, memories crawling up like undead creatures in a horror movie. I shove them back down, biting my tongue so hard I taste blood.

I stumble back to the couch, the drugs starting to kick in. My head lolls back, and everything slows down.

 _I'm sorry, Rhodey. You'll have to come back, find me._

 _I'm sorry, Mom. I'm gonna miss your funeral._

 _I'm sorry, Peggy. You always thought I was going to do something great. Turns out you were wrong._

 _I'm sorry, Jarvis. You'd be disappointed in me. At least I'm not gonna see you where I end up._

 _I'm sorry, DUM-E._ This one I think a bit laughingly, but I find I really mean it, he was one of my first creations, the one that's been there when my father was not.

 _I'm sorry, Captain. I'm sorry my father didn't find you, because he tried, oh god he tried._ This one is the most bittersweet. My father spent most of my childhood searching, mad, deranged fits where he would go days without sleeping, without eating. It scared mom, I could tell in the way her eyes creased, how she held me tight.

 _I'm sorry._

Very, very faintly, through the bubble of sleep encroaching my mind, that sleepy drowsiness of that halfway place between awake and asleep, I hear the door open.

"Hi, sorry I think I forgot -" a blonde girl wanders into frame, freezing when she sees me, "oh my god, are you okay -"

I close my eyes and surrender to the darkness, too tired for that.

"Rhodey, Rhodey?" I murmur, head lolling to the side. A hand catches me, and I know it's him, by the feel of it, the calluses. I'm lying down on something moving, and there's urgent talking, "needs to have his stomach pumped," "blood alcohol too high." The lights of ambulance echo over my eyelids, and I understand very faintly.

"Tony," Rhodey sounds worried, panicked, "Tony, I'm here."

"You should have let me die," I whisper, _"let me die, Rhodey,"_ tears bubble up from some foreign place deep inside me.

"No, Tony. I'll never let you die." There a brief pause, some shouting, the flash of cameras, "now stay with me, Tony, please, stay with me…"


	2. Chapter 2

Rhodey is asleep when my eyes blink open, I groan blearily. The hospital sheets are cool and smooth under my fingers. I'm in a nondescript hospital room, connected to a dozen softly beeping machines. Rhodey shifts in his sleep and I freeze. Reaching out, I snag the newspaper laid next to him

 _ **Youngest Stark overdoses, carted out of apartment by EMT's**_

I scan the article nonchalantly, noting that both the girl that apparently found me - I remember that! And a few of the party-goers gave witness testimonies. Obadiah's going to give a statement later, oh I might tune into that.

There's a picture of me being wheeled into the flashing ambulance, Rhodey grabbing at my hand, oh yeah.

Rhodey shifts again, straightening out and stretching the crick out of his neck. He sighs, eyes still half-shut.

"Hey, Sour-Patch," he yelps, nearly falling out of his chair. I laugh weakly.

"You're awake! How do you feel?" he starts to question, but then sees the newspaper in my hand. "What.. No, Tony you shouldn't be reading that," Rhodey reaches over to grab the newspaper out of my hand, but I hold it high.

"I just tried to kill myself, Or, I think I can read a newspaper about it. I was there, afterall." I snark, keeping reading.

"It's not a joke, Tony."

"Isn't it?"

He fixes me with a deadpan stare. "No."

"Look, Rhodey, it's…" I trail off, unsure. Rhodes waits for me. "I'm fine, just y'know, my parents dying and everything. Not gonna happen again."

"No shit," he snorts, "I'm never letting you out of my sight again, and I don't believe that for a second."

"What? I have deep-seated daddy issues, and I'm secretly seeking approval and parental love? Yeah, a girl once tried that on me, hint," I lower my voice to a whisper, "It didn't work."

"This stuff doesn't come out of nowhere," It's said softly enough, but I still feel the tremors deep in my bones.

"Yeah, well it did, so."

"Tony, I've ignored it all: how you look when your father calls, or is on the TV, or how you never talk about your childhood, or how you obviously drink and party to try and get away. But I will not ignore this."

"Then don't. Just pretend to - for publicity's sake," I let my gaze wander, over the blank hospital walls, the window, the hustle of hospital life from outside the door. Just anywhere away from Rhodey

"How?"

I shrug, "figure it out," I still look away.

"I'm trying," his voice breaks and it takes him a moment. He's leaning over the bed, voice urgent and face no doubt creased and worried. I don't look.

He sighs explosively, about to say something, the door opens before he can. None other than Obadiah Stane charges in, holding a massive gift basket and belly wobbling - either with worry or happiness to see me.

"My boy!" he yells, wrapping me in a hug before I can say anything.

"Hey, hey Obi," I say, voice muffled from his shirt.

He draws back, big face beaming.

"So, how are you," he asks, rather seriously.

"I'm fine," I smile and he smiles back.

 _Oh, so trusting._

 _Fool._


End file.
